


Physician, Heal Thyself

by patternofdefiance



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cutting, Healing, Medical Procedure, Post-Reichenbach, Surgery, not self harm, ptsd mention, scalpel, surgical cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patternofdefiance/pseuds/patternofdefiance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Physician, Heal Thyself

It’s actually the feel of the scalpel pulling through skin that does it for John. One moment he’s in the surgery, trying not to remember doing this a thousand times in sandy winds with smoke in his throat and grit under his nails, and the next he’s outside Bart’s, those same nails digging into skin to find a pulse.

No sand, no smoke, no grit.

No pulse.

John doesn’t go back to the surgery, instead he keeps to treating sniffles and spots. New patients like him, because he’s quiet and calm and un-excitable. Nothing makes him look twice, nothing makes him blink.

He doesn’t develop any regulars, although whether that’s his fault or his intention is a different matter.

He knows how synapses work, how feedback loops form and associations form, so he shuns the old places and the old paths. He stops going to Tesco’s, he stops going to Bart’s, he doesn’t answer the phone calls.

It’s fine. It’s all fine.

Except that he thinks about how he is purposefully avoiding the old paths and places and people - 

And he thinks about that constantly, to the point that avoiding them is harder than not avoiding them - 

And that defeats the purpose.

It defeats him.

It defeats him at night, and in the morning, and in the quiet, diluted sunshine of a London winter afternoon. 

And so he sinks back into the familiar ways, slinks back into old patterns, and finds a kind of comfort. He finds little moments tucked away at Tesco’s. At Regent’s Park. God forgive him, he even smiles, just for a moment, the one time he walks past Bart’s.

He rediscovers Mrs. Hudson, and Greg, and Mike. He tries with Molly, but he can’t cope with her eyes and what they say, what they want from him. They want hope, of all things.

Four months after, and John goes back to the grave.

He reaches out a hand, and it doesn’t shake, and he cups it around the edge of the black stone, leans gentle pressure against it, and doesn’t utter a single word.

And then he lets go.

He lets go of all things, and hope is one of them.

It’s a kind of healing he’s never given or achieved, and of course it would take Sherlock to teach him that.

Back at the surgery, his hands are clean, his throat is clear, his gaze is steady, and his work is flawless.

The scalpel sinks through skin and slinks through flesh, and he cuts the health back into people, if not the hope.

**Author's Note:**

> First Ao3 posting...huzzah?


End file.
